Tag Archives: Messiah

Thirst

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Lent 3A, 12 March 2023. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • Exodus 17:1-7. The people thirsted there.
  • Romans 5:1-11. God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
  • John 4:5-42. Give me a drink.

O God of water and thirst, grant us the strength, the wisdom, and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may and cost what it will.

One theme for the day that I hear in our scripture readings is thirst. Maybe you know Mary Oliver’s poem called “Thirst,” in her book by the same name. [1] When I first read the poem, I heard it in Mary Oliver’s voice; this time around the I hear two voices in dialogue. The first part of the poem seems like the voice of the Samaritan woman.  Continue reading →

Do you not know how to interpret the present time?

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The 10th Sunday after Pentecost, August 14, 2022; The Rev. Dr. John D. Golenski

Luke 12:56. Do you not know how to interpret the present time?

Believe me when I tell you that clergy in Christian churches using the Revised Common Lectionary dread August.  That’s when we have to deal in our preaching with the apocalyptic passages in the Synoptic Gospels.  When last we shared a meal, I joked with Pam that she always takes her vacation during this month so she can escape all these “doom and gloom” passages.  Seriously, there is a lot of gloom in the portions from the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke that are assigned for August’s Sundays.  Suffused with what we could call an apocalyptic vision, they focus on the inevitability of divine judgment and the imminence of the end of time.

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The Crux

Aside

Proper 19B.  12 September 2021. The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Proverbs 1:20-33. How long, O [stupid] ones, will you love being [stupid]?
James 3:1-12. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing….This ought not to be so.
Mark 8:27-38.  Let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

O God of Integrity and Compassion, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Before I speak about our Gospel reading for today, I want to say something about our reading from Proverbs. It sounds to me like it could be a column in The New York Times (or a sermon in Boston) addressing those in positions of influence over our climate or our white-supremacist culture, or those who are still unvaccinated against COVID-19 by actively discouraging vaccines for economic or political gain, and who really and truly should know better. Wisdom, personified in Proverbs as a woman, is preaching, and she is making her strongest plea[1] to those who seem to love being stupid, willfully naïve, not simple in the sense of incapable of understanding, but those who have arrogantly rejected her insights and warnings. “How long, O stupid ones,” she says, “how long will you love being stupid?” Her laughter at the easy-to-predict catastrophe that has resulted from ignoring her sage advice may seem harsh, but it’s not unlike any of us rejoicing when an oppressor or tyrant falls because of self-induced calamity.[2] Wisdom’s laughter is not a generic form of Schadenfreude (or joy at another’s suffering). She is calling to account corrupt leaders, not innocent lambs. Continue reading →

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

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Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost (19B), Sept 16, 2018; The Rev. Susan Ackley

Isaiah 50:4-9a The Lord God has given me
the tongue of a teacher…
James 3:1-12 Not many of you should become teachers…
Mark 8:27-38 Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi…

Here we are back in the sanctuary.

A change of location for our worship as we move from the long, narrow space in the Lindsey Chapel back to this BIG wide open space.  Banners visible up in the choir loft. The Emmanuel Land window. All this resonant air just waiting to be charged by sounds of the Schutz, Byrd, and Bach.
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Be Messiah to each other!

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The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 16a, August 24, 2014, The Rev Rick Stecker

Exodus 1:8-2:10 Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.
Romans 12:1-8 I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Matthew 16:13-20 When Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”

Jesus is in the district of Caesarea-Philippi. He is in foreign land. Today we would place him ten miles from Mt. Hermon and two miles east of the Golan Heights. He is near a spring, in a place called Pannias, one of the sources of the Jordan River. As is the case with many springs in ancient times, there are shrines and temples dedicated in thanksgiving for a life source. Back then, there was a shrine to the god Pan, the god of flocks and herds, and Pan is portrayed as having a man’s body and having the horns and legs of a goat. His sudden appearance is cause for surprise; we get the word panic from this god’s name. And so in Caesarea-Phillipi there is a shrine to the god Pan as well as a large temple to Caesar and several more temples to fertility gods. Fertility gods were believed to abide in the underworld during the winter (sort of like going to Florida) and they returned to the earth in the spring. The caves, which produced water, were thought to be entrance places to the underworld. I visited Israel some years ago and on this site now stands a mosque. Continue reading →